


This Train Runs Off It's Tracks

by circusgymgirl



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Immortality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:01:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24658777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circusgymgirl/pseuds/circusgymgirl
Summary: Cassidy returns to the first place she had a brush with death.
Kudos: 3





	This Train Runs Off It's Tracks

No train has been on these tracks in years and years. I remember the last time, almost a hundred years ago now. It veered off the tracks, right before the tunnel. It went skidding down the hill, the back end tumbling over the head, across the beach and into the ocean. 

I was the only survivor, but they never recorded that. It was the first time, the time that cemented how old I still look. There have been five since, and not once have I come back. It’s a rookie mistake, returning to the scene of the crime. I’m not a rookie. I’ve never made this particular mistake. 

But here I am, staring at the mouth of the tunnel. I’m not on a train this time. I’m not going to go tumbling down the drop to the beach. But my pulse still jackhammers in my chest. I bring a hand to feel my pulse and then pull it away when Hazel turns back towards me. 

“Cass?” she asks, holding out her hand. I take a quick step forward to grasp it, and she pulls me into her side. She glances over at me and I know what she’s asking without the words. She never uses words, if she can avoid it. 

I don’t answer the unvoiced question, not until she opens her mouth. “I’m fine,” I tell her, and she nods. She wants to push but she won’t. She never does. I try not to feel a twinge of annoyance, knowing that it’s not because she doesn’t want to know. It’s not because she doesn’t care. It’s a combination of the walls I’ve built over the years and simply the way she is. 

But she’s the first person I’ve wanted to tell. Before her, I always dreaded the questions. The difficulty of keeping a story straight when there was no one to back it up. When you can’t even tell a version of the truth.

But she doesn’t ask. And so, even if I want to tell her, really tell her, I won’t. I shouldn’t. But maybe it wouldn’t be too bad. I’ve already made one mistake, what’s a few more? What’s an immortal life, if you spend the entirety lying? 

Hazel tugs me a few feet forward, then drops my hand to start climbing the rocks on the outer side of the tunnel, pulling herself up. I follow without question. 

She sits down on another big rock once she’s up there, staring out at the beach that is barely visible through the brush sticking out from the nearly vertical hill, and the ocean beyond. I sit down next to her, and she leans into me. 

“Hey,” I say, pressing my lips to the top of her beanie covered head. She turns her face up to mine, letting her lips brush against mine lightly before pressing her face into the crook of my neck. I wrap my arm around her, pulling her closer to me, then turn my head to rest against the top of hers, looking out at the endless expanse of ocean. 

I can’t hear the waves from here, can barely see them crashing against the beach. But what I can see reminds me that the ocean is still blue. Its waves are still lapping against the shore, and it’s still as endless as always. When a train drove off its tracks and hundreds of people died, the ocean was unbothered. The ocean remains unchanged despite the years and storms it has weathered. 

I have not remained unchanged. The storms and years have slowly changed bits and pieces of me. I am not the same girl I was on the train. I am not necessarily still a girl at all. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve been by the ocean. I avoided it, after the crash. Then, after the fire, I went back. Then, the third time. The time I tried to drown and couldn’t. I left again, after that, and I never came back. The ocean brings back bad memories.

But the ocean will outlive me. At least, I can hope that the ocean will still be here when I am finally gone. That somehow, I will leave before it will. I cannot imagine a world in which I still exist and the ocean does not. 

Hazel shifts against me, then stands and walks to the very edge, right up to where this cliff simply drops off. I follow her. She glances up at me when I have come to stand beside her. Sometimes I forget that I am taller than she is. “If you jumped, would you die?”

She’s not asking me, specifically. She’s just inquiring about how deadly the drop would be. But the answer slips out without me thinking about it, because in some ways, it feels like she finally asked. And I am desperate for a reason, a way to tell her. 

“I cannot die.”

She looks up at me. She must see the truth in my words. This fact that I have finally stopped trying to evade, this fundamental truth about me, must be glittering in my eyes, or visible in my half smile. 

She slides her hand in mine, linking our fingers together. She squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back. She smiles, just slightly, but enough, and shuts her eyes. 

And then she jumps, pulling me down with her. 

It never gets easier, the feeling of death coming close. Even though I know I will never meet it, I can’t turn off the thought, the inherent reaction telling me that this is my last moment. Telling me to remember. 

I feel the weight of Hazel’s hand in mine as we fall, and I hope that this _is_ my last moment. That this is the way I will get to die, our fingers intertwined. 


End file.
